NFC ticket usage set to triple

We’re set for a boom time in mobile tickets says fintech analysts, Juniper Research. The number of users turning to near field communication (NFC) ticketing is set to treble in the next five years.

The research company claimed that the number of users would rise from 122 million this year to 375 million by 2022. The growth is being fuelled by the booming European market – Juniper has scaled down its predictions for markets such as the US, India and Africa because of the lack of any infrastructure to support the technology. The only other countries to buck the trend will be Japan and South Korea.

The predictions are contained in a new report: Mobile and Online: Transport Events and NFC 2017-2022. According to Juniper, the adoption of OEM wallets like Apple Pay and Android Pay mean that NFC technology will grow much faster than m-ticketing will, over the next five years.

Wearables

In addition, the research found thatt events ticketing will be dominated by SMS and QR codes. It’s expected that transport ticketing, especially metro, bus and rail, will account for more than 90% of total mobile NFC tickets issued over the next five years.

Juniper also looked at the growth in wearable technology. The company said that contactless tickets purchased via smart wearables will exceed $1 billion in value by 2022, thanks to the number of partnerships between transport operators and ticket providers. “At present, using wearables for making ticket purchases is understandably minimal given the low penetration of capable devices, as well as the lack of supported contactless infrastructure, especially in venues and stadiums”, said research author Nitin Bhas.